INDIANAPOLIS -- Prison officials say a massive sentencing reform law that was supposed to save taxpayer money is actually costing more.
The Department of Correction reports costs have more than tripled since it began diverting low-level offenders out of state prisons and back into their communities, as required by the new law.
Its report, which has yet to be released publicly, is alarming to some lawmakers who've seen it....
Lawmakers who pushed to lower penalties for drug-related crimes, such as drug possession and theft, vowed to return anticipated savings from prison costs to communities for treatment programs, community corrections and local lock-ups.
But, according to the department's report, there's no money to send.
This despite a reduction in the prison population of more than 5,000 inmates - a 17 percent drop - since the law went into effect in July 2014.
How many of those 5000 (now) non-inmates do you suppose have returned to crime? Just askin'.Local sheriffs who supported the sentencing reform law are unhappy.
Interesting report here, Bill, though you left out the funny math done being done by the Indy DOC seemingly in an effort to squueze the taxpayer for money money for its programs:
"[T]he state spends about $35 a day to house a convicted, low-level offender in a county jail, according to the Correction Department report. The department claims it can house the same inmate in a prison for just under $10 a day.
"Steele and other lawmakers who were deeply involved in crafting the sentencing reform law are irked by those claims. Two years ago, when Correction Department officials asked lawmakers for money, they reported it cost about $60 a day to house a state prisoner."
"A year ago, prison officials said they needed an additional $51 million to build a new state prison. Steele and others rejected the proposal, predicting that the state would be able to close a prison – and save millions – as sentencing reform took hold."
Seems we have in this article still more proof of what I said at the long comment threat elsewhere: big government growth in corretions is like big government growth in all other areas and claims of big-govt insiders need to be questions. When asking for more of Indiana taxpayer money, the DOC says it needs an extra $60 a day per prisoners. But when it does not succeed in squeezing the taxpayer for money, they turn around and claim their big-government is much cheaper and a better deal.
This is why there is so little trust in all parts of government and so many politicians --- a lot of lies (or funny math) that all go back to squeezing taxpayers for more dollars to run big government programs.
Doug --
I just have to believe the Indiana DOC knows more about imprisonment in that state than you. And I am unwilling to make the pretty nasty assumption that they're all just a bunch of self-serving swindlers who're cooking the numbers.
Doug --
One more thing. You say, "When asking for more of Indiana taxpayer money, the DOC says it needs an extra $60 a day per prisoners. But when it does not succeed in squeezing the taxpayer for money, they turn around and claim their big-government is much cheaper and a better deal."
Could you link to where your numerous allies in the Brennan Center, ACLU, NACDL, SEIU, Sentencing Project, Amnesty International, etc., etc., have ever objected to spending more on inmates? Or where you have ever taken them to task for wanting it?
But why, Bill, did the Indiana DOC tell the GOP legislature in Indiana that it cost $60/day to house a prisoner when it was asking for lot more taxpayer money, but now it is saying that it costs only $10/day now that the GOP legislature has started embracing an alternative punishment system that apparently costs only $35/day? The request to built another prison was surely part of the equation in the funding request, but then souldn't the savings from not having to build that prison be part of this new cost report?
Please understand and let me be very clear so no nasty words are being put in my mouth, Bill: I am sure the Indiana DOC knows more about imprisonment than I do, and I am NOT asserting that the folks who work there are "all just a bunch of self-serving crooks who're cooking the numbers." Rather, like the government employees who work in any big government agency --- like the Department of Education or the Department of Health --- I am confident that DOC folks are well-meaning public servants who sincerely hope to advance the public interest by doing their jobs well. But, also like the government employees who work in any big government agency, they think they can improve the public interest even more if they just have more and more taxpayer monies to hire more and more people to do more and more of the work they do.
Notably, for the last 40 years, legislatures did not ask any hard questions when DOCs asked for more and more taxpayer money, and their budgets grew faster than any other part of goverment spending. Maybe taxpayers, in Indiana and elsewhere, keep getting great value for their tax dollars with every exta $ sent to the DOCs. I hope so. But I still find it telling to see that when some cost concern enters the discussion after the DOC is refused another taxpayer handout, we start hearing very different numbers about the "real" costs of imprisonment from the DOC.
I think, Bill, that the "Brennan Center, ACLU, NACDL, SEIU, Sentencing Project, Amnesty International, etc., etc" all advocate for less spending on building new prisons and/or housing more prisoners. I will readily concede that these groups may often be eager to spend prison savings on other programs and that they think investments in treatment programs (inside and outside of prison can help) can produce public benefits. But I am never surprised when folks on the left who embrace big government talk a lot about the need for more government spending for their favorite causes.
I am surprised, though, when folks on the right who spend so much time talking about how government always grows and cannot and should not be trusted to spend more and more tax monies on a variety of public programs often seem so very quick to trust the part of government that has grown the very most in percentage terms the last 40 years.
1. I did not put words in your mouth. That's the other side's trick. I correctly specified the assumption of your comment, identifying it as an assumption, not a quotation.
2. Do you think the Indiana DOC falsified its report? That's a yes or no question.
3. Pending the answer, you certainly seem to want it both ways: That DOC is well-meaning and honest, but then.....well.....not really, because the numbers they're putting out just don't jibe.
4. If you're interested in the background data, perhaps you could ask the Indiana DOC how their numbers add up when it seems to you that they don't. Isn't asking the source better than speculating?
1. My "assumption" here is based on this critical part of the article you cite but leave out of your excerpt: "Senate Judiciary Chairman Brent Steele, R-Bedford, calls it 'ridiculous' and says the report contains 'phony-baloney numbers'.”
2. I have no idea if the Indiana DOC falsified its report, but I know that Indiana Senate Judiciary Chairman Brent Steele, R-Bedford, calls it "ridiculous" and it has "phony-baloney numbers." I have not seen the report, but I surmise Judiciary Chair Steele has and he seems to think the numbers do not jibe.
3. I do not want to have it both ways, I want to help you see the nuance here: government employees can be well-meaning and honest but also self-serving and biased in favor of growing government. Indeed, it is precisely because government employees are well-meaning and honest that they often do not recognize their own self-serving biases in favor of growing government. If you trust that government spends money better than "the unwashed masses," you are eager to tax and spend their money because you are confident you will use that money better. And that is the whole point here, to reveal that even those who are well-meaning and honest in the big-govt criminal justice system are eager to have that system continue to grow and they will find ways to see data to continue to justify growing government.
4. The article indicates that the Indiana DOC report is not yet publically available. I hope you will post it here when it is, since you are the one who has gotten me interested in these numbers.
The DOC numbers appear to be skewed as the $10 a day number excludes the fixed operational costs for the state prisons, which could account for the different $60 a day number cited previously. Even though there may be some differential between county and state facilities, 40% of the program's participants are in neither and in some community based corrections program. Like Professor Berman, I hope you will post the numbers when they are released in April.
California has benefited from the fiscal savings of its program (on track for $350 million in the fiscal year) and although it has only been about a year their participants have less than a 5% recidivism rate.
https://www-cdn.law.stanford.edu/wp-content/uploads/2015/10/Prop-47-report.pdf
"California has benefited from the fiscal savings of its program (on track for $350 million in the fiscal year) and although it has only been about a year their participants have less than a 5% recidivism rate."
1. Yes, yes, and the federal budget is "on track" to be balanced by the year X. I love the "on track" locution.
2. When, as I have noted here repeatedly, the Department of Justice under Eric Holder issued a 2014 report finding the state offender recidivism rate to be over 75%, do you think anyone will believe that the California recidivism rate under Prop 47 is ONE-FOURTEENTH of that?
I sometimes have to pinch myself to remember how unabashedly divorced from reality sentencing reformers' claims can be. This is right up there with the claim that we can cut the prison population in half and have no loss of public safety.
3. I'm puzzled by your saying "although it has only been about a year..." Shouldn't that read, "ADMITTEDLY it has only been about a year..."? Using "although" makes it sound as if the 5% rate is artificially high, whereas in reality it's artificially low; recidivism rates are generally measured after five years, not one.
4. I could care less that Stanford Law says it. Stanford Law professors were pushing Prop 47 for all they're worth (something you neglect to mention). If Stanford Law says the earth is flat, that too will be tripe (although not to the extent of the preposterous "less than 5%" figure).
1. So, you dislike the "on track" qualification, do you disagree that even if those numbers are inaccurate Prop 47 is likely to save California a significant amount of money?
2. The claim is not "unabashedly divorced from reality". I'm assuming the Report you are referring to is the April 2014 Special Report entitled "Recidivism of Prisoners Released in 30 States in 2005: Patterns from 2005 to 2010" (please correct me if I am wrong). This Report did find a 76.6% re-arrest rate within 5 years after release for the state offenders studied. The reason why Prop 47 (and Stanford's analysis) does not conflict with this finding is that the nature of the of the offenders (and their corresponding recidivism rate) studied was very different. Prop 47 encompasses low level offenders; whereas, 74.3% of the offenders studied in the 2014 DOJ Report had criminal histories with at least 5 previous arrests (43.2% had TEN or more prior arrests).
The under 5% number from the Stanford study is not out of line with the US Sentencing Commission's report, which found a 16.6% recidivism rate for the offenders it studied, which again included those with high criminal history categories whose recidivism rate was approximately 2.5 times higher than that of offenders with no or insignificant criminal histories.
3. I don't know why you are puzzled by my using "although" rather than "admittedly"; as you yourself recognized a recidivism rate less than 5% in the first year of release is low. Thus although (or even though) it has only been a year, the Prop 47 offenders are recidivating at a low rate. I put in the fact it was only a year out because the majority of recidivism occurs within the first three years of release, which means this number will most likely increase. But as the USSC report demonstrated the most recidivism will likely occur in the first year and then decrease over time (beginning at 16.6% in the first year, followed by 10.55, then 6.6%, and then under 5%)
4. You comment that you "could care less what Stanford Law says [regarding fiscal savings from CA sentencing reform]" on a blog post where you post an article regarding internal Indiana DOC numbers that Indiana's own legislators expressed skepticism over even calling the numbers "phony-baloney".
1. It has zero to do with my likes or dislikes. Saying we're "on track" for X cost savings always turns out to mean, "Sorry, we don't have any actual cost savings, but here's our, ummmmmm, projection."
As I say, this should be taken with the same degree of seriousness as the claim seen, what, eight gazillion times in the last decade that, "We're on track to have a balanced federal budget by the year X."
I think we've all learned the "on track to" game by now.
2. You say, "The under 5% number from the Stanford study is not out of line with the US Sentencing Commission's report, which found a 16.6% recidivism rate for the offenders it studied..."
What I was referencing was the DOJ report (as you seem to understand), not the USSC report, to which you quickly and seamlessly revert.
Still, putting to one side that you switched the comparison pool, your answer is wonderfully revealing. I'll just leave it where it is: The under 5% number is "not out of line,"you say, with a number more than THREE TIMES HIGHER.
This is use of language, defense bar style.